I wear a full body mosquito net that is very light, and includs a cap with netting for the face. Underneath, I just wear my running shoes, short pants, and a t-shirt. The net lets through plenty of air for cooling and I rarely get bit. It does get hotter than without the netting, though. The hands and ankles are the only vulnerable places. I've spend hours in the Laurentian forest just north of Montreal in mid-May (the peak of bug activity in those woods). Looks funny but it works great. I bought the netting at a camping supply store. I was there just yesterday and the bug activity has dropped so much at this point in the summer than no net was needed. I'm not sure how the netting would deal with bees, as the major culprits here are mosquitos.

Most of the advice above is good. You might try eating a lot of garlic the day before you go out. There are also garlic pills if you want. Some people I know have success with Skin so Soft body lotion too.
As an aside, the proper name for those plants is Rape. Canada changed the oil name to Canola because rape didn't sound so good for marketing. I remember when it was called Rape Oil.

I've had some experience with mosquitoes, especially in the Everglades in Florida and Costa Rica. In spite of the heat, I wore long pants, hiking boots, and thick socks. And carried a couple bottles of DEET. In Cano Negro, Costa Rica, we sprayed repellant around all the outside door and window seams in our lodge, and every morning there was a collection of dead insects at each location. The blood suckers there were nuclear-powered! Fortunately it was not a malarial area but we did have mosquito nets just in case.

In the rain forest, closed-toe shoes were a very good idea. Even on the side of the road, taking photos of a river, I got bitten on the foot by a small black ant. We were riding in an air-conditioned van, so I just had on sandals and didn't think too hard about the insects. It was very painful but fortunately for me it was not a bullet ant (AKA veinte cuatro or the 24-hour ant; if you get bitten you'll be sick for a whole day! It's supposedly named the bullet ant because being bitten is somewhat like getting shot.). One piece of advice our rainforest guides gave us was *never* reach out and touch a railing or a branch without looking, and always watch where you put your feet!

Last edited by rthomas; 07-02-2012 at 10:35 AM. Click to view previous post history.

As an aside, the proper name for those plants is Rape. Canada changed the oil name to Canola because rape didn't sound so good for marketing. I remember when it was called Rape Oil.

Actually I believe the proper name is Rapeseed,

Matt

“Photography is a complex and fluid medium, and its many factors are not applied in simple sequence. Rather, the process may be likened to the art of the juggler in keeping many balls in the air at one time!”

Ansel Adams, from the introduction to The Negative - The New Ansel Adams Photography Series / Book 2

How about having wild bees try and take over your darkroom fan and build a hive there? I have a huge external-mounted squirrel-cage ventiator, and had to leave it on continuously for three days
at high speed before they gave up. Meanwhile, chopped up pieces of the bees kept landing in the
darkroom sink.

90 percent of U.S. Canola is genetically modified. How would it be hazardous to my health?

Nobody knows. We have to wait for a damage to your health to emerge (this might take decades) to understand the matter. It's also possible that a damage to your wealth emerges but the scientific community fails to associate it to genetically modified food, so it will take longer.

In case you don't want to act as a Guinea pig you might consider buying food which is certified, or declared, to contain no OGM. That means, as far as I know but I could be wrong, excluding most of produce coming from the US unless certified no OGM-derived products inside, because the US allow the confusion of OGM food with non-OGM food (the distributive chain mixes OGM and non-OGM raw matters if you buy "rapeseed oil" you have no idea how much of it is derived from GM rapeseed).

The general rule in Europe is that OGM-derived European produce cannot be used for human consumption, BUT there is no prohibition regarding OGM-derived produce (typically US import) which is not traceable.

If you want to avoid food from OGM you better avoid US-made food containing corn, rapeseed oil, and other common GM produce. That's true in Europe as well, you have to avoid products containing US produced raw material.

To state it better, as far as I know GM corn is not allowed in European produced food but if you buy that Bonduelle can of corn (which contains US corn) you are buying an unknown percentage of GM corn. The fact that Bonduelle is a French brand doesn't help because it can use US corn and trade treaties between Europe and US don't allow exclusion from imports for goods for which there is no OGM traceability, which - is argued - is precisely the reason why there is no traceability in the US. (If it was traced the import of OGM-derived produce for human consumption could be forbidden).

There is probably something wrong in what above but you get the general meaning. Europe is forbidding OGM-derived products for human consumptions only if the OGM-product is European.

The underlying bet is possibly that, in the long run, people will see US products as "junk" and European products as "quality" products as the US will have compromised their reputation as a provider of food products.

For the moment if you buy a rapeseed oil bottle you might want to check the country of origin.

Last edited by Diapositivo; 07-03-2012 at 04:42 AM. Click to view previous post history.

Nobody knows. We have to wait for a damage to your health to emerge (this might take decades) to understand the matter. It's also possible that a damage to your wealth emerges but the scientific community fails to associate it to genetically modified food, so it will take longer.

The growers/developers would NEVER sell something that has less than beneficial side effects. Would they?

Asbestos, Agent orange, GSK has just been fined 3,000,000,000.00(billion) for deceptive advertising and providing false test results for some of their meds.